Microsoft beats quarterly cloud revenue estimates

Oct 28 (Reuters) Microsoft surpassed expectations for quarterly cloud revenue on Wednesday, signaling that its hefty AI investments were paying off at a time Wall Street grows increasingly wary of Big Tech s debt-fueled spending. Revenue at Microsoft s Azure cloud computing business ​grew 48% to $33.17 billion in the first quarter ended September, topping Visible Alpha s ‌estimates of $32.84 billion. Azure revenue came in at $29.4 billion in the prior quarter. Shares of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft were up about 4% in extended trading. The stock has risen about 9% so far this year, through Wednesday s close. Last month, Microsoft decided to disclose Azure revenue in dollars, instead of just growth rates, offering a clearer ‌picture ​of how its cloud business stacks up against rivals Amazon ⁠Web Services and Google Cloud. Capital expenditure ⁠for the quarter stood at $45.2 billion, up from $34.9 billion in the year-ago period. Microsoft s own projection for first-quarter capita